


tides and embers

by congratsyouvegrownasoul



Series: the only hope; or else despair [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (mostly), Autistic Zuko (hinted at), Baby Zuko!!, Character Study, F/M, Fire Nation Royal Family, Fluff, Fluff within a Dysfunctional Family I suppose, Gen, Kid Fic, Ursa POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 11:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10683942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/congratsyouvegrownasoul/pseuds/congratsyouvegrownasoul
Summary: Scenes from a summer on Ember Island





	tides and embers

“I have to leave tomorrow morning,” Ozai tells Ursa matter-of-factly one evening in the last week of summer. They’re in bed together in the house on Ember Island, his body curled languidly around hers, his breath soft against her skin. One of his hands is resting on her rounded belly; the other one toys with her hair.

“For the capitol?” Ursa remembers seeing a messenger hawk depart from the house earlier that evening, as she was carrying a sleepy Zuko up from the beach.

It would be a shame, for him to leave before their last week on the island was over. This summer has been delightful—with their second baby coming soon, Ozai is more relaxed than she’s ever seen him, even helping Zuko dig trenches in the sand that day.

Besides, Iroh is home on leave from the Earth Kingdom front, and he and Lu Ten were supposed to visit tomorrow. Ursa had hoped that the peaceful atmosphere on Ember Island could help to heal the two brothers’ strained relationship.

“No, for the Earth Kingdom. My father wants me to go in after Iroh’s done conquering and help install the new colonial governors. Not an especially glorious task.”

Ursa feels his bitter smile twist against the back of her neck. She rolls over carefully to look him in the eye.

“This is good, though,” she reassures him. “The Firelord wants you to help him rule. Setting up our colonies is just as important as defeating the Earth Kingdom, even if it’s not quite as glamorous.”

Ozai sighs. “I suppose so.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“A month, maybe six weeks. Depends upon how much resistance there is to our rule.”

His voice sounds as if he hopes for resistance, for a chance to prove his mettle.

“Six weeks?” Ursa pulls away, staring at him in surprise. “What if the baby comes early?”

Ozai shrugs. “Then it comes early.”

“But I want you to be there,” Ursa says, her voice sounding small even to her own ears. As her due date comes closer, she worries that this birth will be as painful and difficult as Zuko’s. Surely having Ozai nearby could provide her some comfort, could make her feel less scared.

She touches Ozai’s hand, pulls it over to cover her belly again, hoping her affection will soften his resolve. But he pulls away, rolling over so his back is to her.

“Ursa, don’t be childish.” He sounds irritated. “There are more important things than what you want. This mission will give me a chance to prove myself before my father. An honorable wife would help me do my duty to the Fire Nation, and not complain about it.”

Ursa bites her lip, chastised.

“I’m sorry,” she says meekly.

She reaches out, gently stroking his hair like she does with Zuko when he’s upset. Ozai starts slightly, then relaxes into her touch.

“It’s just that I’ll miss you,” she says, and finds that she means it.

* * *

 

 

“I’m going to miss you when I’m in the Earth Kingdom,” Lu Ten tells her earnestly the next afternoon, as the two of them towel off after a swim. At seventeen, he’s old enough to go on his long-awaited first campaign with his father, and he’s been chattering excitedly about it off and on all day.

Now, his enthusiasm stills for a moment, and he looks at her with wide, wistful eyes. “I’ll write to you every week, and I’ll get Dad to write too, even when he’s busy.”

As he mentions Iroh, he catches his father’s eye, further up the beach, and waves at him. Iroh, setting up a travel tea set, waves back. Next to him, Zuko naps on a towel.

 “Thank you, Lu Ten, that’s wonderful to hear,” Ursa says, smiling at him gratefully. “But you and your father won’t leave until after Ozai gets back from his mission, right?”

Lu Ten nods. “Probably not. But we might miss the new baby’s arrival, and I’m sorry about that.”

Then it looks like Ursa will either have her husband around for their child’s birth, or Iroh and Lu Ten. She’s not quite sure which she would prefer, and that makes her feel a little sad.

“Don’t feel bad,” she says, trying to make her voice encouraging. “You have to do your duty, just as Ozai does. Just as I do.”

Lu Ten smiles at her. “That’s right. And right now, my duty is to help forward our nation’s march of progress—finally!”

His voice has taken on its irrepressible, boyish excitement again.

Ursa can’t help but think of Ozai, both of them so very ready to go out and fight. Lu Ten will serve as an ordinary officer, one of dozens under his father; Ursa imagines Ozai wouldn’t be as honored to hold such a minor title.

When Ozai was Lu Ten’s age, ready to take on his first command, Iroh was already a great military leader. Ozai was never given the prestige he might have been otherwise, because he lacked his brother’s experience. In the years since then, this pattern has repeated itself, and Ozai has never been able to gain enough experience to shine in the eyes of his father.

Lu Ten is thrilled to be able to take part in a campaign at all, to utilize his training and serve his country. Ozai, on the other hand, has grown more and more resentful of his brother over the years.

Ursa didn’t know her husband when he was only seventeen, but she looks forward to see the man Lu Ten will become.

Right now, he’s gone back to watching her intently, looking slightly embarrassed.

“Ursa, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m worried about you, just a little bit. You’re not that much older than I am, and I can’t imagine having children of my own already.”

He glances away from her, rubbing his towel over his hair.

“Are you sure you’re doing okay? You won’t be overwhelmed with Zuko and the new baby together?”

His voice is muffled under the towel. When his head pops out, his eyes are bright with gentle concern.

Ursa isn’t offended by any means, but she doesn’t know quite how to respond.

“I suppose—I’m a little nervous too,” she says slowly.

When she herself was seventeen, Ursa couldn’t have predicted that she’d be approaching her twenty-first birthday, married to a prince, and pregnant with her second child. She wouldn’t change the past few years—otherwise she wouldn’t have Zuko—but she is a little worried about her future.

Zuko is a high-maintenance little boy, full of energy and emotion, and she doesn’t quite know how she’ll handle him as well as a newborn sibling.

“I’m scared I won’t be able to keep up with both of them at once,” she confides.

Lately, as Zuko gets more comfortable on his feet, he’s taken to wandering off and exploring. Ursa sometimes fears that he’ll get himself into trouble while she’s focused on the baby. He loves the water, and she’s often looked away for a moment only to find him splashing in one of the shallow ponds in the palace gardens.

Ursa’s been teaching him basic swimming skills, like how to float on his back, but she still worries. Today, though, she and Lu Ten and Iroh had had a lovely time wading in the ocean with Zuko. He’d tried to blow bubbles in the water, the way she’d taught him, and wrinkled up his little face in shock at the saltiness of the sea water.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” Lu Ten says, “You can always have a servant look after Zuko while you watch the little one, or the other way ‘round.”

Sometimes, she forgets that Iroh and Lu Ten also grew up in the palace, because they’re not as haughty as Ozai. Ursa can easily imagine them at home in the little provincial town she grew up in.

“I don’t want my children to be raised by servants,” Ursa says sharply.

Everything is so different here. Even on Ember Island, their house is so large and grand, with a whole strip of private beach in front of it. When Ursa was a child, her family would vacation at a lake sometimes, and have to jostle for space on the pebbly shore.

“You don’t have to let that happen,” Lu Ten says reassuringly. “You’re a great mom, but you don’t have to do everything by yourself.”

Ursa nods.

“Thank you, Lu Ten.”

She leans over—they are almost exactly the same height—and kisses him on the cheek.

“You always give such lovely advice.”

Lu Ten rubs his cheek and blushes furiously.

“I take after my dad.”

“If you’re talking about me,” Iroh calls suddenly, “I have great news! The tea is ready!”

He’s specially selected teas for each of them—chrysanthemum for Ursa, ginger for Lu Ten, and ginseng for Iroh himself, his favorite.  A hamper of sweet mango rice cakes has been unpacked as well. Zuko, roused by the delicious smells, rubs his eyes and sniffs the air. They give him his own rice cake, which he nibbles on blissfully, and let him have sips of their tea once it’s cooled a little bit, tilting the porcelain cups carefully so as not to spill on him.

Ursa and Lu Ten are lying on their towels, enjoying the last of their tea, while Iroh sits cross-legged in the center of their little group, beaming around at them. Zuko, licking specks of sticky rice off of his fingers, lies on his tummy in front of his mother, his sand-sprinkled hair standing up in sharp tufts.

“You’re going to need a bath later, darling,” Ursa tells him, ruffling his messy hair. Then, she glances shyly at Iroh.

“Did you hear our whole conversation, or just the bits about you?”

Iroh looks evenly at her, stroking his beard in concentration. “I heard enough to agree with my son. You are a wonderful mother, but you’re still very young. And children are a handful, that’s for sure.”

Ursa nods. Now that Zuko’s getting bigger, she’s certainly learning that. He’s no longer quite as helpless as he was as an infant, but he’s more difficult. He’s edging into the tantrum phase right now, which she isn’t very keen on, and she worries sometimes because at almost eighteen months he still isn’t talking.

“But I know you can handle it. I’ve seen you step up with Zuko, and you’ve done it mainly on your own, which I’m sorry for. I hope my brother is more involved this time around.”

Ursa looks down at her hands, unwilling to speak ill of her husband. “I think he will be.”

Glancing over at Zuko, she notices that he’s taken an interest in a small dragon crab, crawling across the sand in front of him. Her son is lying down, watching its every move intently, his little hands reaching out expectantly to receive the crab. Ursa feels a pang of worry—small as it is, a dragon crab could spark off and burn Zuko’s fingers.

“Zuko, darling, come back here,” she calls.

Zuko doesn’t react, too focused on the task at hand.

Ursa sighs and gets up, swooping down on her son and scooping him up.

Zuko makes an irritated noise and squirms to get away, still reaching for the dragon crab. It’s hard for Ursa to hold him now—he’s getting big, and with her pregnancy, he doesn’t fit easily in his usual spot, balanced on her hip. Ursa struggles to hold him up, bracing her bare feet in the sand as he wriggles around.

“Here, let me take him,” Iroh says, offering up his arms.

“Thank you,” Ursa says gratefully, neatly depositing Zuko into Iroh’s lap.

Zuko almost immediately forgets about the dragon crab, reaching up to tug on Iroh’s beard instead.

“Ah, why is it always the beard?” Iroh complains good-naturedly, as Ursa and Lu Ten laugh.

Soon, Zuko finishes investigating his uncle’s facial hair and snuggles into Iroh’s chest, starting to suck his thumb.

 Iroh gently pets his head, then looks over at his own son.

“Lu Ten, I remember when you were this little,” he says, his voice fondly teasing. “It seemed as if you played all day and cried all night.”

Lu Ten blushes, glancing at Ursa. “That was a long time ago, Dad.”

“Of course,” Iroh continues, winking at Ursa, “I also remember when my brother was this little!”

Ursa stifles a laugh. It seems delightfully incongruous, imagining her strict, fearsome husband as a chubby-cheeked little boy like Zuko.

 “I always wanted a little brother or sister when I was young. I used to ask my mother for one on my birthdays, but after a few years I stopped because it started to upset her—they had thought they couldn’t have children after me, you see. By the time Ozai was born, though, I was a teenager and I had no idea what to do with a baby!”

He pauses for a moment, gazing out at the sea as if lost in his memories, and absent-mindedly continuing to pat Zuko on the head.

 “Ursa, Zuko will be lucky to have a sibling so close in age. I’m sure he and the new baby will be the best of friends!”

Ursa smiles at him.

“I hope so.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a happier sort of corollary to the rest of this series. I wanted to show bits of the everyday life of Ursa and her family, and address how Fire Nation imperialism affects even our "good" characters. Thank you to heckofabecca and thesometimeswarrior for your advice and inspiration! 
> 
> Also, writing this made me ship Ursa and Lu Ten a little :0


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